Sometimes the little things matter when using a distro... especially when it involves completing a simple task that helps one's productivity such as making address labels in bulk. In Debian, I use Glabels for this task, but given that it is a Gnome app, it will not run in Wary Puppy as there are too many missing dependencies....

So, I got to thinking about this and I wondered about using a spreadsheet as a template... whether it would work or not. After spending a couple of evenings on this, I found a way to do this in Gnumeric while using the Avery Mailing Labels #08160 These mailing labels come in Letter Sized sheets with 30 labels per sheet.

In a nutshell, the task involves creating a spreadsheet layout that matches the Mailing Labels Sheet. To do this, one must resize the necessary rows and columns to match the size of each label and take into account the spacing between the labels. To accomplish this, one must convert the dimensions of each row and column from inches or centimeters to pixels.

Briefly here is what I did:

--determined that my screen display is set at 84 dpi
--set the screen dpi in Gnumeric to the same value --> Preferences
--converted the column widths and row heights from inches to pixels
--adjusted the font size for the address labels in Gnumeric
--set the margins for printing in Page Setup in Gnumeric
--frequently checked the Print Preview and tweaked the values for each row, column and margin in the set up
-- made four or five test prints until I was satisfied with the result
--I placed the finished spreadsheet here: --> /usr/share/gnumeric/1.10.16/templates

As proof of concept, I am attaching my template as a working example. The template can be re-worked by resizing the cells, rows, and columns in it to match the dpi setting of one's monitor, as well as the particular Mailing Label Sheet. Unfortunately, there is no "template that fits all" and it might be just as easy to start from scratch...

Lastly, I want to say that I am not a spreadsheet wizard. There may be some further tweaks or improvements that can be done, and I will welcome helpful advice, input etc. My thoughts are that this project is a bit tedious, but quite do-able, However, if anyone wants more details, more information how to do this, then I will consider writing another post in depth.

I am hoping to hear from others who have tried my method to find out if it works for them given that their display is likely running at a different resolution overall.

I have also looked at the Avery website and found that one can also use their products with a Linux distro to create fancy address labels while on-line. To do this, one must have an account with Avery, and be running Adobe Flash on their website.

While it is great to have this option, personally, I like to be able to do things on my desktop independently --first and foremost.

Monsie_________________My username is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

Yet another way is to scan in a copy of of an existing mailing labels sheet and use it to print additional mailing labels.
I have did this and it works well.

8-bit, that is an interesting solution... Do you mean that you scanned a blank mailing labels sheet and used that as a template, or did you scan an already filled in mailing labels sheet? Please explain further and in more detail...

Thanks,
Monsie_________________My username is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

Using a mailing label program on another OS, I printed a page of labels that had the fields filled in.
I then scanned that sheet of labels in and used it to print more using a word processing program and setting top, bottom, left, right, header, and footer margins appropriately.
I would then print out to a blank page, not mailing label page and compare that for fine tuning.
I also did this with pin feed single roll mailing labels.

Using a mailing label program on another OS, I printed a page of labels that had the fields filled in.
I then scanned that sheet of labels in and used it to print more using a word processing program and setting top, bottom, left, right, header, and footer margins appropriately.
I would then print out to a blank page, not mailing label page and compare that for fine tuning.
I also did this with pin feed single roll mailing labels.

I am trying to think of a scenario where this could be useful... If for example, a mailing labels sheet was originally created by someone else who was using Microsoft Works or Microsoft Office, maybe I could import a scanned image of a printed mailing labels sheet into OpenOffice and make a template of that. This could address --pardon the pun-- possible problems with file compatibility if I were to use the original Microsoft file (that created the mailing address labels) in OpenOffice and try to print from that...

While there is definitely better compatibility between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice nowadays, I suppose there are still some glitches that come up...

Thanks for your feedback,
Monsie_________________My username is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

After doing some more research regarding templates, I found another solution for printing address labels... It turns out there is a website dedicated to creating and printing labels of all sorts: http://www.worldlabel.com/Pages/template_1.htm

I managed to find an OpenOffice template for the Avery Mailing Labels sheet #08160 and after downloading it, I discovered that it will indeed open in abiword. So, I created a set of address labels, ran a test print and found the result was fine.

Once again, this was a very useful solution for me, because given my old Pentium lll system, I don't have sufficient ram to run OpenOffice 3x where I could otherwise complete this task.

I suspect this will prove to be a useful solution for some other Puppy Linux users also...

Cheers,
Monsie_________________My username is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

Are you interested in explaining how you managed to package and install glabels for Lazy Puppy, and, do you plan on sharing this application with the Community?

I don't use .pet packages - only .sfs modules.

I can't remember where I did get the package from, but I'm sure it has been a .pet package in original.

Usually I do extract a .pet package to have a look into its pinstall.sh script (if there is any). After this I do some work needed to get the things from the pinstall.sh script done - if needed (mostly it is not). Also I'm editing the .desktop file/s for German Menu Entry, Icon etc.pp.

Then I do re-create the package, installing it (I don't use any save file so, I can do what I want without any risk!) and trying to run the application - if it doesn't run immediately I check for missing libraries etc. until the application runs (therefor I do copy all new files manually into the OS and also into the directory of the extracted package). When successful, I do re-create the package again and building a .sfs module out of this re-created package (I can do this just by right-click action, which builds me the .sfs module completely including creation of a RunScript).

After this I do a reboot and try to run the application by the created RunScript, which loads first the .sfs module automatically and executes the application immediately after loading the .sfs module. If it works then, it will go into my repository at smokey01.com/RSH/ (there are hundreds of .sfs modules to download).

Thanks for sharing... So I loaded your sfs package and did some testing. Unfortunately, it will not run in Wary Puppy because Wary is assembled with glibc 2.10 whereas your version of glabels requires glibc 2.11 or greater.

So unless there is an earlier version that I could compile from source, running glabels in Wary Puppy is a non-starter... not to mention that there are also numerous dependencies which Wary does not have: libgnomeui, libgnome, libkrb5, libgconf, libbonobo, etc. etc. --you get the idea.

I did check Precise Puppy though, and it has glibc 2.15 and many of those needed libraries that I listed above, so probably glabels will run on the latest Puppies providing all dependencies are met... so hopefully others will try out your package and find it works for them.

That said, given my old computer, I am happy that I can create address labels using either abiword or gnumeric because I don't need any additional resources to do so. Since I am challenged by limited ram, limited storage, and a slow system, my priority must be to run as lean as possible.

Cheers,
Monsie_________________My username is pronounced: "mun-see". Derived from my surname, it was my nickname throughout high school.

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